Many tumor agents, such as anthracyclines and vinca alkaloids, have been developed in the last few years and are especially effective for the treatment of cancers. However, these molecules are often characterized in vivo by an acute toxicity, especially a marrow and mucosal toxicity, as well as a chronic cardiac toxicity in the case of the anthracyclines and chronic neurological toxicity in the case of the vinca alkaloids.
Thus, it has been sought to develop more specific antitumor agents, so that they are more effective against tumor cells, and consequently to decrease the side effects of these products (toxicity, destruction of non-tumor cells, etc.).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,105 describes doxorubicin derivatives linked to an optionally substituted amino acid, which possess in vitro a higher antitumor activity and lower toxicity than doxorubicin.
However, since these derivatives have an intracellular action site, these molecules are still liable to enter tumor cells and normal cells.
Thus, in the last few years, new therapeutic agents have been proposed in the form of prodrugs.
Prodrugs are molecules capable of being converted to drugs (active therapeutic compounds) by certain chemical or enzymatic modifications of their structure.
However, these prodrugs are also characterized by a low stability in the blood and serum, which contain enzymes which inactivate these molecules.
The documents Chemical Abstract 97:150635, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 23, pp. 1171–1174 (1980); Drugs Exp. Clin., Vol. 9, pp. 303–311 (1983); Journal of Medical Chemistry, Vol. 23, pp. 1166–1170 (1980) and Patent Application BE-882.541 describe prodrugs comprising a carrier linked to the drug via a peptide arm. Preferably, the arm consists of four amino acids and is linked via its free carboxyl function to the free amine function of derivatives of anthracyclines such as daunorubicin.
In addition, the arm of these prodrugs is linked via its free amine function to a carrier consisting of a macromolecule (protein such as BSA, immunoglobulins, etc.) which permits the selective endocytosis of the prodrug by target cells.
It is also known that methotrexate may be used for the treatment of inflammatory reactions such as rheumatic diseases, but its high toxicity limits its applications.